The EEOC ignored that judicial thrashing and pressed on. Last April, the agency unveiled its "Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions," declaring that "criminal record exclusions have a disparate impact based on race and national origin."

The Obama administration is building Catch-22's for business. In order for a business to succeed, it will have to break the law. It could get a pass, though, if the business will take certain specified actions that support the federal government. In other words, the only way to get ahead will be to break the law.

If you unknowingly hire a criminal and he/she ends up killing someone on the job, who usually ends up having to pay out the absolutely insane court award? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. America really sucks under the Kenyan’s rule.

Blacks and Hispanics unfortunately are a demographic with higher incidents of failed criminal activity. ie spent time in jail.

So a company now faces government harassment if they do criminal background checks and are taking a risk by not doing them. So the answer will be that human nature abhors bad policy, so less qualified black and Hispanics will make to through the hiring process so a company reducues it’s risks.

6
posted on 02/16/2013 3:50:29 PM PST
by Fzob
(In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. Jefferson)

So, if it’s discriminatory to do criminal record checks before hiring an employee, based on the same logic, wouldn’t it also be discriminatory to do criminal record checks to prevent someone from exercising a right spelled out in the U.S. Constitution?

From a conservative point of view do we want these people integrated into society, being responsible, getting married and obeying the law?

We’re never going to build enough jails to lock up every one and its expensive.

We should reserve scarce prison space for the worst of the worst: murderers, rapists, armed robbers and people who have assaulted people.

Other offenders should be made to pay restitution to their victims and kept out of prison. A decent society isn’t measured by the number of people we imprison; its measured by the number of people we keep from getting into serious trouble in the first place.

I have an engineering degree and a heck of a resume including various security clearances and management positions. My headhunter put me in for a very high position at nearby company. They did a screening interview, then sent me for a 4 hour evaluation test by a psychiatrist. After the math, English and reading skills test I had to answer several hundred psychological questions. I think its okay to steal from my employer if my pay is too low. I think its okay to give illegal drugs to a coworker providing no money changes hands. I think marihuana should be legal. Its okay to do illegal drugs on the weekends if Im not doing them at work. I think violence is okay provided the person I hit deserved it. These questions were asked about 30 different ways. According to my headhunter, this company has cut its turnover by 50% since they began this testing. Apparently, a large percentage of people are idiots. Im thinking if this test is that good, maybe background checks arent necessary. Provided you give all the employees the same test, it should be legal to screen this way. By-the-way, the math, English and reading skills went from grade school to college level. Requiring a twelfth-grade passing score might screen out most criminals.

One has to look at how an ex-con did his time in prison, how long was the offense, whether he has an stable ties in the community, who his friends and associates are and so forth.

Every person has to be judged on their own merits because every set of facts and circumstances are different. An employer just can’t look at your record and say, sorry we don’t hire ex-cons. He has to show there is reason you will re-offend again in the future.

For people discharged from prison, rebuilding their lives is a Catch-22.

I wholeheartedly agree. The criminalization of youthful bad judgement or bad situations is having a terrible impact on people. Someone that made a mistake 10 years ago can pay for it their whole life. Many companies automatically disqualify you if you have a record no mater what the circumstances.

I wonder how many men have have criminal records because of a whacked out ex wife or girlfriend. Or for not paying child support when nearly broke or jobless? Or how many people have records for minor drug offenses?

Yet truly bad guys routinely get released because jails are overcrowded with people that simply made a stupid mistake.

17
posted on 02/16/2013 4:18:51 PM PST
by Fzob
(In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. Jefferson)

I started working at the elementary school in our town. I had to be fingerprinted and background checked to be a bus driver. Then, had to do it all over again to get my substitute teacher certification. Are schools liable for not hiring someone who has been imprisoned for child rape? Oh, geez. That might actually happen some day!

yes but this country only works with moral people exercising their own self control, that’s why we have so many more criminals today than before. plus they executed far more troublemakers a lot quicker after sentencing so they couldn’ t continue to plague and terrorize the rest of society.

Ex-cons can be rated on their threat, and once this is done, there are some that are unemployable. But there is a possible solution of states teaming up to create an "ex-con reservation", in a rural part of a host state, for a price.

In essence, a low technology town where they can work to support themselves, and instead of getting individual handouts, they get them as a group, to save money.

The town government are what amounts to ombudsmen, to keep things flowing smoothly. And membership is based on good behavior. If you misbehave you get sent home. Most of what they do is to farm much of their own food.

But they are away from crime, alcohol and drugs, without the intense pressure of the "real world". In particular, a lot of convicts are getting out when they are older or elderly, so this also works as a semi-retirement home for them. But again, the bottom line is not for them, but to save taxpayer money.

The testing seems a good idea, until some lawyers decide to take the employer to court because the test will have a disparate impact on some disadvantaged group. It adversely effects the stupid, or people that didn’t study or some minority, etc.

This will reek havoc on your liability insurance. I wonder if someone in this administration is getting paid off because of this reason. I know Obama likes to go after business, but the reality is he only goes after those who are small or not part of the club, i.e. bribing, hmmm... I mean campaign donations.

38
posted on 02/16/2013 6:39:27 PM PST
by DarkWaters
("Deception is a state of mind --- and the mind of the state" --- James Jesus Angleton)

An ex-con is going to be more dependable in a rural situation than an urban one? An ex-con followed a path of crime because of “real world” pressures that are somehow less evident in a rural setting?

The above is your plan for saving taxpayer dollars? Have you calculated the cost of testing/evaluation, transportation, social services, recidivism and legal costs? It is cheaper to maintain a lock on the cell with a person getting 3 squares and a beautiful exercise room.

You said: “So a company now faces government harassment if they do criminal background checks and are taking a risk by not doing them. So the answer will be that human nature abhors bad policy, so less qualified black and Hispanics will make to through the hiring process so a company reducues its risks.”

Actually, that won’t be the answer to bad policy. The article linked above states the following:
“The EEOC is confident that its guidance will boost minority hiring, but studies published in the University of Chicago Legal Forum and the Journal of Law and Economics have found that businesses are much less likely to hire minority applicants when background checks are banned. As the majority of black and Hispanic job applicants have clean legal records, the new EEOC mandate may harm the very groups it purports to help.”

Criminal background checks allow employers the opportunity to specifically remove a high-danger element from their workforce. Employers are most often liable for any criminal damage their employees are responsible for, and criminal activity in the workplace can be extremely costly in both monetary and non-financial terms.

The government on the other hand argues that due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of criminals are black and hispanic, criminal background checks have a disparate impact.

In effect, the businesses are saying “we don’t want criminals”, and the government is saying “but most criminals are minorities! You can’t discriminate against them because you’d be discriminating against minorities”. If the government prevents businesses from denying criminals employment opportunities, then businesses will be forced to use the next best measure of criminality available to them... the indirect and imprecise measure of ethnicity.

It’s really kind of laughable. The EEOC and the Civil Rights Commission can’t find any real white-on-minority racism in this nation, so they resort to measuring things that merely correlate with racial discrimination. The net result being to force businesses to stop using direct measures of criminality and instead just use racial discrimination to keep criminals from getting hired.

I think the confusion here is that this is not a prison. It is a low tech town for older, trustee-type ex-cons, with few modern amenities, including electronics or vehicles, outside of an emergency radio and vehicle kept by the small staff. Living there is not punishment, but a privilege for good behavior.

Since because of their original crime, and their age, they are pretty much unemployable in the rest of society, and have to live on a substantial dole of welfare, it would be a lot cheaper to provide them an inexpensive place in which they could just survive.

Already in the US we have what amounts to “geriatric” prisons that are in effect convict retirement homes with minimal guards, which works as long as they still have time to serve. But once out on the street, they can no longer function in society, often falling prey to drugs and alcohol, committing crime to survive.

If you consider several states kicking in *part* of the welfare that would have been paid directly to the ex-cons and social services like emergency rooms and Medicaid, to send them to the host state, several states save a bunch of money.

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